Always a theatre lover Sam realized in middle age that there's more to Toronto theatre than just mainstream and is now in love with one person shows, adores festivals, and quirky venues make her day.
For me it was definitely memory lane. For a couple of reasons. Margaret Trudeau, Linda Griffith, and I were born within five years of each other, that’s our shared history. And, because I saw Linda Griffith perform Maggie and Pierre in 1981. It made a huge impression on me. Continue reading Review: Maggie and Pierre (timeshare)→
Prairie Nurse is “fun” and “entertaining”, playing at the Factory Theatre in Toronto
Prairie Nurse opened at Factory Theatre on Thursday. Written by Marie Beath Badian, and inspired by her mother’s immigration story, it’s a very funny play about two young Filipino nurses who arrive at a small rural, hospital in Saskatchewan in mid-winter in the late 1960’s.
The play is kind of a combination of farce and slapstick and hinges on the inability of the Canadians to tell the Filipinos apart. It’s not as cringe making as it sounds; two of the characters have no trouble knowing who’s who, two others can’t tell and feel terrible about it, and the fifth is clueless. The nurses think all the Canadians look the same. Continue reading Review: Prairie Nurse (Factory Theatre and Thousand Islands Playhouse)→
Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille presents Jivesh Parasram’s new solo show Take d Milk, Nah?
As we were heading to Theatre Passe Muraille on Thursday evening to see the opening of Jivesh Parasram’s solo show Take d Milk, Nah?, my friend Elaine commented that she wasn’t sure that she had been to Passe Muraille before. As I was about to say that she would recognize it we turned the corner and saw a huge inflated cow next to the theatre. There’s no way you can miss it.
Which is good because you don’t want to miss Parasram’s show. Parts of it will make you laugh, parts of it will make you think, and, if you’re a white Canadian, parts of it may horrify you. Elaine and I both enjoyed it although we both had the same quibble. More about that later. Although there was no intermission the show was in two distinctly different parts. It actually felt like two different shows. Continue reading Review: Take d Milk, Nah? (Pandemic Theatre and b current)→
Assembly Theatre presents a story of love in the face of cancer treatment, on stage in Toronto
As I was putting my coat on in the ‘foyer’ of the Assembly Theatre after seeing the Unit 102 Actors Co. production of Therac 25, I overheard a woman say to her friend “That was lovely”. Her friend replied “it was”. Uninvited, I joined the conversation and said “It really was.”. The first woman said “The way they used the projection was so effective.”.
And that’s my review in a nutshell. It is a lovely play. Yes it’s about two young people with cancer and yes, a lot of it takes place in St. Margaret’s Hospital and yes, you might shed a tear or two at the end. It’s a play about two young people who have something really shitty in common, meet, become friends, and fall in love. Continue reading Review: Therac 25 (Unit 102 Actors Co.)→
Noise arrives on the Toronto stage at the Annex Theatre
The Randolph College for the Performing Arts production of Noise opened on Tuesday at the Annex Theatre. This is the first English performance of Maria Milisavljevic’s play Beben (“Quake”), originally written in German. It was first translated by Milisavljevic with David Jansen for a staged reading in 2016. It’s been further updated by Director Birgit Schreyer Duarte and the student cast for this production.
The translating and updating included adding Canadian and Toronto references, which made the text more engaging. The play is in two acts with an intermission, and I have to admit that at the end of the first act I was struggling to understand what was happening. I had an easier time following the changing narratives and was engaged with the play in the second act. By the end, happy ending not withstanding, I was actually feeling kind of depressed. Continue reading Review: Noise (Randolph College for the Performing Arts)→
Linda Griffith’s play about Margaret and Pierre Trudeau is currently on stage in Toronto
Prairie Nurse is “fun” and “entertaining”, playing at the Factory Theatre in Toronto
Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille presents Jivesh Parasram’s new solo show Take d Milk, Nah?
Assembly Theatre presents a story of love in the face of cancer treatment, on stage in Toronto
Noise arrives on the Toronto stage at the Annex Theatre